


Ballad of the Boulonnais

by bazemayonnaise



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Additional Warnings In Author's Note, Angst with a Happy Ending, Gen, Horse pov, M/M, Post-Seine, speedrunning the post-seine feels
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-04
Updated: 2020-05-04
Packaged: 2021-03-02 18:00:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,207
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24010966
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bazemayonnaise/pseuds/bazemayonnaise
Summary: Jean finds himself thinking he is looking at a twin set of scornful ghosts when he turns a corner in Paris and is struck with the sight of Javert, last-seen covered in filth on the night of the barricade those long weeks ago, hand-feeding that deathly white horse with — if not a smile, a look of serenity.
Relationships: Javert & Jean Valjean, Javert/Jean Valjean
Comments: 4
Kudos: 46
Collections: Les Mis Big Bang: Quarantine Edition





	Ballad of the Boulonnais

**Author's Note:**

> Cw: references to previous animal abuse, reference to animal injury, suicidal thoughts, reference to attempts to complete suicide.

Franc knows many things about his world. His world is mostly a stable, and a town, and a cart that he pulls. His world had previously been men trying to ride him, throwing their heavy saddles over his back and digging their heels into his body. He had put an end to that, kicking for all he was worth. 

Franc likes to pull the cart. It is heavy. A challenge. It is what he is built for. 

Franc knows that he is an attractive horse. He is built well. His neck is short, he has strong forelegs, and he is a dusty white. He is large and elegant and he is full of fire and he rides like the wind. 

He is ridden hard by a man he does not know, and then he is left in the stable of an inn he does not know, and he does not see the man who trained him nor the stable he thought of as home again. 

It is a strange many years he spends passing between people who do not know how to use him. Again he kicks, again he resents being ridden with a saddle, again and again he is treated with disrespect and moved on. 

He has nearly forgotten the faces of the small town he spent many of the earlier years of his life in, until he is purchased by a man in the large-place-bigger-than-a-town that smells bad. 

Franc is not as strong as he once was, not the young horse he used to be, but he still kicks this man off of his back. The man remains on the road for a good many moments, looking up at Franc. 

“You refuse to be saddled?” the man asks. 

Franc casts his disdainful eye on the man. 

The man takes in a breath. He lets it out in what is almost a laugh, if Franc could not tell that the man is secretly very angry.

“You are not to be forced into a role you wish not to take, huh.” The man stands, calmer than any of the other men Franc has kicked off before, and he picks his hat off of the cobbles, dusting it off with his sleeve. 

Franc watches the man, waiting for this man to try to hit Franc back, as many men have attempted to do before (much to their disadvantage, as his legs are many times faster than theirs), but the man never does. 

When he deems that this man is not an immediate threat, Franc watches him with one eye. The man is tall and fairly broad with a dark brown skin; more blue-black fur covering his head and snout than many other humans. 

He seems tired. Not like he has just finished plowing a field or pulling a cabriolet, but like he is weary to the bone and done with his life. It is the look of a horse who has been bashed one too many times, whose leg has broken and cannot be fixed. A horse who has decided that even the pasture beyond the fence is a dream not worth living to see.

Franc is not yet as tired as this man, but lately he has been feeling the coal stoked within his heart has not made it flare as it once had. The cobbles of the large, stinky town are not the flagstones of the town of his youth, and the air is not the air of his colt-hood near the forest.

Franc does not often spend his time wondering about the childhoods of the men that surround him, but he does wonder if this man longs for the air of the forest near his birth town. Franc wonders if it is because he does not remember a kind smell of a sweet childhood that the man wishes to die.

Franc releases some tension from his muscles and he inclines his head towards the man. The man is still watching him, even as he keeps his distance. A respectful distance, Franc notes.

“Do you have a name?” the man asks, and Franc can tell that the man is not the kind of human who expects an answer. “Perhaps as I am Inspector to many, you may be Boulonnais to me. Is that a fair deal?” the inspector asks. “I have come to think of my breeding as something to be proud of. I hope you feel the same.”

Franc continues to watch the inspector.

“Alas since you are not able to reply, Boulonnais you shall have to remain until I have passed and you are given a more apt name by a more poetical companion.” The inspector runs a hand through the fur on his face. “But this is inconvenient, Monsieur Boulonnais. You see, I had hoped you would help me escape Paris tonight.” 

So the man is not intending to fall face first into the Seine, at least, Franc thinks. There are certainly prettier places to die outside of the large stinky town. Franc gives his body a shake. _ Not a saddle _ , he thinks towards the man,  _ but I will take you in a cab. _

The inspector tilts his head, a small crease forming between his brows, a look of concentration. “Ah, you are telling me that you will haul me if I do not attempt to saddle you?” The inspector’s frown lifts a little. “I am afraid that I am not a man who can afford a cabriolet, Monsieur Boulonnais.” 

Franc shakes himself again, but he supposes that is that. He is rarely a charitable horse, and this is the extent that he is willing to help this man. 

The man watches him for a moment longer, then shifts his eyes towards the stars. “I suppose it was not to be,” he says, and he sounds distant. Not in proximity, for the man has not moved, but Franc can hear the man striding closer to death, reigns clutched between his hands. 

Franc is not a charitable horse. Franc does not believe in the goodness of man. Franc is not, and will not ever be, a ‘good horse’. Franc snorts and he moves closer to the inspector, rubbing his forehead against the man’s chest.  _ Hungry _ , he thinks at the inspector.  _ Feed me. _

The man startles, but he does not move away. Instead his hands come up to hold Franc’s head in a practised way, fingers instinctually scratching at Franc’s ears. Franc is suitably placated by the man’s attempt at comfort. The man is not particularly gentle, but Franc is not a delicate horse, and he enjoys the feeling of this man’s hands brushing through the fur of his neck, dislodging dirt and dust.

“You must be hungry, Monsieur Boulonnais. Yes. I suppose it would not be right for me to permit my final act of selfishness without having fed you first.” The Inspector runs his hand down Franc’s neck, assured and calming. “What would you prefer?”

_ Oats, _ Franc says.  _ Give me oats. _

“I am afraid I can perhaps only afford oats, Monsieur, but hopefully that will suffice.”

Franc does not like humans as a rule. Franc does not like this one. Not yet. But for the moment, he will allow this human to buy him oats, and he will make sure this human does not complete a foolish action until he has smelled the fresh country air one more time.

-

It is not that Jean Valjean remembers every horse he has ever ridden. Far from: he has never owned a horse but one fleeting time when renting had not been an option, and he usually spent any time outside of his house with his eyes fixed towards the shadows: more interested in lurking inspectors than on the animals that brought him to and from one desperate situation to another.

But, when his desperate situation had necessitated his purchase of a horse from one Monsieur Scaufflaire, Mayor Madeleine had spent many consecutive hours wanting any distraction from his fate, from thinking of what awaited him in Arras. He had thus chosen to pour his energy into memorising every shape of the animal carrying him towards his doom. 

A dusty white Boulonnais horse. A male with a stout neck almost as thick as his body, strong forelegs and a powerful, white build. A battalion of small scars across his neck, long-since healed and likely the product of owners before Scaufflaire. A nick in his left ear and a clump of uneven hair on his neck. A small, dark patch of grey fur on his flank that Jean presumed made him undesirable to those looking for the purity of a fully-white horse. 

Jean had almost begun counting every hair on the horse's neck when they had arrived at the inn Jean had been forced to abandon it at on that wet, February night. 

This is why Jean finds himself thinking he is looking at a twin set of scornful ghosts when he turns a corner in Paris and is struck with the sight of Javert, last-seen covered in filth on the night of the barricade those long weeks ago, hand-feeding that deathly white horse with — if not a smile, a look of serenity. 

Jean Valjean is gobsmacked. Speechless, he only realises his mouth has gaped in disbelief when he touches his own cheek, looking to pinch it and prove he is not dreaming, or dead. He has been close, he knows, and these last few weeks fading from Cosette’s attentions has pushed him closer to his limit than he had expected. 

But then he had a thought: to check one last time on the inspector who had yet to close that final door on their relationship. And so he had asked his landlady, who had asked her butcher, who had asked his friend from church, who had found an address, and this address had been scrawled onto a piece of scrap paper and placed in Jean Valjean’s hand. 

So Jean Valjean stands, mouth agape, outside of what he is told is Inspector Javert’s apartment, watching the terrifying man whisper soft words of love and adoration into the ears of a horse that Jean Valjean had once thought was transporting him into this very man’s hands. 

The horse looks up first, its eyes conveying a muleish standoffishness that Jean Valjean cannot help but to laugh at — because it is mirrored quite spectacularly not a second later on Javert’s face. 

“Talk of the devil,” Javert says, apparently to the horse, not making any move from his position feeding the creature. 

“You have a horse,” Jean Valjean says, because if he is frank with himself, he can’t think of what else there is to say. 

“Yes,” Javert agrees. There is a moment where both look to the horse. “Well?”

“Well?” Jean Valjean asks, feeling his expression morph into its familiar Mayor-Madeleine-exchanging-pleasantries position.

“Did you require something of Inspector Javert, Jean Valjean?”

Valjean swallows, does not allow the facade to crack. “I…” Valjean bites the inside of his lip, even as his empty brain scrambles for words. “I do not require Inspector Javert, no.”

Javert stares at Valjean, face blank and unreadable. “I see.”

“I…”

“...yes?” 

“Are you well?”

Something flashes across Javert’s face; a brief and familiar glimpse of rage, but it soon passes. “You have sought out Inspector Javert to exchange niceties with me?”

Jean Valjean hums. “I sought you out for no particular reason, but now that I am here, I find I have nothing to say but ask about your health.”

“Hm.” Oats finished, Javert wipes his hands on a rag sat on a nearby stool before returning to the horse with a brush. “I have been better, I have been worse.” Javert brushes the horse down in long, experienced strokes. “And yourself?” he asks the horse's coat.

“I am…” Jean Valjean finds himself wandering slightly closer. “I suppose I have been worse, though I feel as if my soul is dying, even now.”

Javert frowns, still not looking up from the horse. “Are you injured?”

“My body is as healthy as it ever has been.”

“... The girl?” Javert hazards.

“No, thank God, she is still perfectly well.”

Javert makes an aggravated little noise. “Then will you tell me what ails your soul, or would you prefer I kept shooting pot-shots into the sky?”

Valjean is so taken aback by the petulance that it shakes a laugh from him: something he has never done save for when he is in Cosette’s company. 

“If you have come here to mock me, Jean Valjean—”

“Oh no, Inspector, absolutely not. I simply…” Valjean laughs again, taking another step closer, until he is close enough to the pair that he could reach out to touch them. He raises a hand, slowly, meeting Javert’s eye to ask for permission. 

Javert shrugs a shoulder. “He is finicky. He does not like who he does not like. But you may try.”

Valjean does so, carefully raising his fingers to the horse’s nose. The horse pulls away with a contemptuous snort. 

“Ah, he must remember me after all.”

“You know the horse,” Javert says, at once incredulous and yet accepting. “Of course you do.”

“This horse is the horse who carried me from Montriuel-sur-Mer to my trial at Arras.” Valjean allows his hand to hover by the horse’s head, but it is obviously choosing to ignore him, so Valjean steps back out of its space. “For what it is worth,” Valjean says to the horse, “I apologise for so crudely abandoning you not hours after buying you.”

Valjean shoots Javert a half-smile. “I was so focused on myself, on my trial, that I rode him hard until he could ride no more, found an inn and a fresh horse and continued on my way. I hadn’t even thought to consider him until just this moment.” 

“Hm.”

“Though,” Valjean says, “If I hadn’t. If I had stayed with him at the inn, left him to rest and had dinner, I would have been late to the trial, Champmathieu would have taken my place in prison, and who knows where we would be.”

“Hm,” Javert says again, though this time with a touch of distance to his voice, as if he is no longer existing in the same conversation. 

Valjean lets himself come to grips with this thought-experiment for a moment before dismissing it with a breath out. “But come, let us not think of that. What is its name?”

“He is Monsieur Boulonnais.” 

“Ah. Quite the name.”

“Feel free to name him. I have no sense with these things.”

“I regret to say I cannot be of any help to you, Inspector. I have not needed to name anything since…” 

“You were asked to name that new road in Montreuil-sur-Mer.” 

“Mm. Yes, since then, perhaps. And you remember how well I did with that.”

“‘Church street’,” Javert says, with an audible roll of his eyes.

“‘Church street’,” Valjean echoes, slightly gleeful. “I was just glad I was able to convince them not to name it after myself. “Rue Madeleine, can you imagine?” 

“I was forced to,” Javert says, now brushing in small circles. “The town came to me first. I was very much against the idea.”

“Then I have something to thank you for, Inspector.”

Javert snorts, harsh and angry. “Now you really are making a fool of me.”

“No!” Valjean says. “Not at all, Inspector—”

“Javert,” the man says, quickly. “Not Inspector, not anymore.”

“Ah,” Jean Valjean says, taking another half step back and dipping his head as he does. “I apologise, I had not intended to offend you, Javert.”

Valjean watches Javert’s jaw slowly unclench, his grip on the brush gradually becoming less tight. 

“May I sit?” Valjean asks, pointing at the stool. He hopes that in sitting beside Javert, in giving the man the physical high ground, he will feel some sense of comfort return.

Javert just gives him a vacant shrug, which Valjean takes as a yes.

There is a stretch of silence where Valjean just watches the other man work, meticulously cleaning this horse. 

“You are not here to mock me,” Javert says eventually. “You are not here to gloat.”

“Mm,” Valjean confirms. 

“You are not here for revenge.”

“There is nothing I hold against you, as I said.”

Javert turns to him, slightly desperate. “Then why do you continue to haunt me?”

Valjean frowns. “I—” The hurt in the look thrown at him is almost painful to look at. “I…” Unable to stomach it, Valjean looks down at his hands. “I… I am here because I am a coward,” he confesses.

“You? Of everything you are, you are no coward,” Javert says, almost without a second thought.

“I have worked hard to redeem myself in the eyes of God,” Valjean continues, unhindered. “And yet my thoughts… they betray me, as they often do. They encourage me to… to do the unthinkable.” Valjean gathers himself. “I am incredibly sad, Javert. A young man has put distance between myself and the only light I have in my life.”

There is a long, considering silence, and then Javert is there, crouched before him, a serious look in his eye. “‘The unthinkable’?”

“It is as you think,” Valjean confirms, wretched. 

Javert locks their eyes for a good, long moment, his intense frown focused on Jean Valjean, and then he stands back up with a kiss of his teeth. 

“I am despicable,” Valjean says. “I know. To think of ending the life that God has given me… that the Bishop has bought for me…!”

“I cannot believe it,” Javert says, sounding as if he is talking mostly to himself, more to the horse than to Valjean. “Of all the… The cheek!”

“The… cheek?” Valjean repeats, questioning.

Javert turns on him again, something not-quite-like-fury in his expression. “Jean Valjean! I was ready to throw myself in the blasted Seine because of you and your damned self-assurance. Because of your irritating ability to be  _ Right.  _ To be  _ Just-! _ And now I find some  _ boy _ \- some babe barely off its mother’s breast has crushed your will to live so thoroughly you’re, what, here, before me, hoping that I will crucify you so that you need not bring the knife to your own neck?” Javert lets out a “Dear God!” that’s mostly an angry gush of air. 

“You-” Valjean says, brain parsing Javert’s words-

“Yes,  _ I _ ,” Javert says. “If you can have your blasphemous thoughts for being cucked by a wet-nosed brat, then I am permitted mine for-” 

“‘Cucked’,” Valjean interjects, horrified-

“For believing my entire life that the Law is just, only to have some, some  _ man _ -”

“She is my daughter, Javert, not-”

“Some man who swans around, believing himself to be the second coming of  _ Christ _ -”

“And I —  _ Christ? _ ” Valjean says, aghast, “No, Javert, I had never— Dear God, I-”

“Who then saves  _ me _ , his lifelong tormentor, from bloodthirsty schoolboys-”

“Not my tormentor, Javert, a man doing his unfortunate  _ job _ -”

“Giving lecture after lecture about morality until I know naught what my position in the world is, until I reflect upon my past until I can think of nothing but the horrors I have committed on my fellow humans-” 

Both Javert and Valjean let that thought sit, and Valjean forcibly releases the tension from his shoulders. 

Javert sighs. “So you see I have no patience for your problems when mine are so.”

“Mm,” Valjean says. “And so you purchased a horse to talk with instead?”

There is a moment and then Valjean hears a sound he cannot immediately place. He glances up to find that Javert is laughing, despite himself. It is not the terrible, triumphant laugh he has heard many times in his past, but it is a laugh Valjean finds is very human: self-deprecating and full of humour because of it.

“No,” Javert admits. “Monsieur Boulonnais was to carry me to some forest, where I had hoped to…” Javert does not complete the thought. “I have decided that I do not want to end my life in Paris, my bones interred with the children I have helped to kill.” 

“Mm.” 

“But,” Javert says, and Valjean is almost-laughing when Valjean completes the sentence for him, “Monsieur Boulonnais is not a horse who will allow himself to be saddled.”

“Quite,” Javert says, a touch amused to find they share this knowledge.

“I would offer you the use of Cosette’s cab,” Valjean says, wistful, “But alas I am not particularly wanting to offer you a literal vehicle of your own destruction.”

“Hah.” Javert shakes his head. “I cannot say for certain, but I have a feeling like I may not need it.”

“Hm.”

“Not yet at least.” Javert licks his lips. “And you, Jean Valjean? Will you be requiring me to sharpen my knives? Should I purchase a hammer and some nails? Some timber, perhaps?”

“No,” Valjean says with a smile. “No, I think I should be fine.”

“That is good, because I barely have enough money to feed this one and his infernal lust for oats,” Javert says, giving the horse a hearty pat, “without needing to feed your ego too.” 

“Now I fear it is you making the fool of me, Monsieur Javert.”

“He is a wise one, this Jean Valjean,” Javert tells the horse. “Of that we can be sure, huh, Monsieur Boulonnais.”

“You are short of money,” Jean Valjean says. 

“Hm? Yes. It is nothing to be concerned about. I have arms, I can plow a field.”

“I would like to buy your horse.” 

“Excuse me?” 

Jean Valjean has to bite his lip: Javert looks like Valjean has just announced that he is lawfully removing Javert’s favourite toy, or confiscating his sweet pastries. “My daughter’s atrocious husband has horses, and I thought I no longer needed one, so I am in the market for the occasional use of a horse that is able to pull a cab.” Valjean looks to the sky. “A stable-boy might be necessary too.”

“Stable boy?” Javert asks, outrage choking his voice. “You— I!”

Valjean’s bottom lip trembles with the effort of not laughing. “Monsieur Scaufflaire was satisfied with 500 francs, but I suppose with inflation…”

“Five  _ hundred _ ?” Javert exclaims. “How — my God, Monsieur Scaufflaire knew what he was doing! Even without the age this horse is worth less than a hundred  _ écus!” _

“Let us say a thousand,” Valjean says, holding his hand out. “Outright, for your caring and feeding the horse, until you deem it necessary to ask for more funds. The horse must eat more than oats, you see, to carry me about.”

“A thousand?” Javert asks, distantly. “No, monsieur,” he says. “I cannot accept this offer.”

There is a breath, as both of them feel the weight of the  _ monsieur  _ wash over them.

Valjean cannot help but feel slightly sad at it, at the reaction of it. He hums. “Yes, I suppose it is quite a hasty deal.” He lowers his hand. “Then perhaps…”

“No more, Jean Valjean, I do not need a thousand francs-”

“Then perhaps,” Valjean continues, “I may come here, every so often, to assess the horse? You are right, perhaps he is only worth a hundred. I would like to spend some time considering my decision.” 

Javert narrows his eyes. “And I suppose you will offer me a tidy sum to keep him on retainer for you.”

“Well!” Valjean says, “If you insist!”

Javert does roll his eyes this time, but he is not rejecting the offer, so Valjean takes it to be a done deal. “You must think hard, then,” Javert says instead.

“On?”

“As the wealthy patron of this horse and his humble  _ stable boy _ ,” Javert says, managing to inject a glorious amount of poison in the words, “Monsieur Boulonnais will need a name.”

“Oh, no, Javert, not me or his name shall end up being ‘Church Horse’!”

“I veto ‘church horse’,” Javert says instantly. “But surely there must be some name knocking about in that ancient head of yours. A friend? A family member? A…” Javert pauses. “I confess I know not what one names a pet after. A colour?” 

“A colour?” Valjean asks, and this time he will admit that he is making fun of Javert.

“Fine,” Javert says, huffing as he crosses his arms. “Why not ask your daughter. I have no doubt she is already musing names for  _ other reasons _ .”

-

Franc does not really understand the intricacies of humans. 

They anger, and they laugh, and they play, just as horses do. They feed him, and they put him to work, and that is all he really needs to understand. 

This new human with his dark skin and his white hair… Franc will admit, after a few familiar weeks, is a kind human. He and the hairy human play and laugh and get angry with one another. The fight and they shout, but they also visit the country and they breath the fresh air together.

And, Franc thinks, they feed him well, bathe him often, and he is pampered by the nice-smelling smaller human who comes to give him sugar. 

If he allows her onto his back without kicking her off, that is his secret and his alone. He will not, after all, be saddled by any man.


End file.
